


cloak of carmine

by noonlighted



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst, Blurryface, DEMA (Twenty One Pilots), Death, F/M, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Trench Era, idk really know yet, lowkey joshler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:26:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26824369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noonlighted/pseuds/noonlighted
Summary: Tyler has been in Dema for what feels like forever. He can barely what it feels like to want to leave, and why would he?It's comfortable, and there's no surprises, unlike the harsh terrain and unpredictable weather of Trench.But Josh is worried. He's worried that his friend is slowly drifting into compliance, that they'll never reach Slowtown. Hell, he's worried that he'll wake up one day, and Tyler won't. He needs to get Tyler out, while he still can.tw// suicidal thoughts, suicidal ideation, mentions of suicide
Relationships: Jenna Black/Tyler Joseph, Josh Dun/Tyler Joseph
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> here's the [wattpad version](https://www.wattpad.com/812347932-cloak-of-carmine-preface), just in case.
> 
>  _author's note_  
>  i am aware that both tyler and josh have gone through mental health issues. i do not personally know how they feel/have felt, obviously, and i am not trying to pretend i do. all discussion of mental health, regardless of what is said, is not meant to reflect anyone's irl viewpoint/experience of mental illness. everything in this fic is based on my experiences.
> 
> on that note, please remember that in no way is it my intention to glorify or romanticise mental illness, suicide, etc. this book covers some heavy topics often in a fairly flippant manner and i want to make it clear that these are real, serious issues. if you are struggling with anything, it is always best to start by telling someone. my dms are always open if you want to vent or chat, or you could talk to a friend or adult you trust. stay safe, guys.
> 
> p.s, if you saw the original version of this fic, no you didn't ♡. i've been writing this since i was fourteen, and i'm so proud of it. i hope you enjoy it too.
> 
> peace,
> 
> pear

I think about death a lot. 

Maybe too much. I know Josh worries about it. (I stopped telling him. I thought it was interesting, but every time I would mention it, he would cling to me like I was looking at his face through a noose.)

I mean, it was pure curiosity. But now I can't seem to get away from them. These thoughts. They're constantly hounding me, neon lights flashing, "It's time to think about death!"

I'm so sick of it.

My head's always buzzing right before I go to bed. Sometimes with thoughts, and sometimes with static, but either way, it's too loud.

I like to sit on the window sill and watch the vultures circle overhead, great black wings unfolding, cutting through the air with ease. Josh says they unnerve him. I think they're kind of lovely.

The windows fold all the way out, so I can sit and dangle my feet right over the edge. The temperature drops right down at night, as if it wasn't cold enough already, and the sky is dead and cloudless. 

I used to be afraid of the dark. To be fair, I think I still am, it's just that light is a kind of constant in Dema. I say light, it's more of a perpetual state of grey. 

You would think the Bishops would revel in darkness, but I think their neon is too important to them.

The thing about neon is that the light permeates everything. The light is there, glaring, white and unnatural, from when you crack open your eyes to long after you close them, phantom light staining the inside of your eyelids. It blinks at me from the other side of the room, a chandelier of bright white, mocking me.

Sometimes I wish I was in Nills' district. (And I really hate Nills' district.) 

Nills' is the only lightless district. The whole diocese just seems to hang in this permanent state of darkness and despair. (I mean, that's the whole of Dema really, but it's even more so in the Nills' district.) 

You feel it, as soon as you step in there. The aching silence, so dark it's like you're dying. I know, because once a couple years back I snuck into one of the rooms so I might get a decent night's sleep. It was awful. I sat up all night, rigid with fear, barely daring to blink. 

The thing is with darkness there could be anything in there. Once your mind latches onto something, you'll start to see it in the curve of the shadows. Faces in the corner of your room. Eyes, everywhere. At least the neon allows me to know that Nico or any other of the bishops isn't watching me from the corner of my room so they can drag me to one of their existential seminaries, or worse. I can think about death in relative peace, knowing that it isn't just 'round the corner, waiting to grab me by the throat.

I used to like thinking about when I'd die. 

I'm not scared. I know it's going to happen one day, and then it will all be over, no more waking up. It makes me sad, I guess, but I've accepted it. It's inevitable. 

The fact that I'm going to die doesn't scare me. But when I say, "What if I died ?" I don't know, that terrifies me. I mean yeah, of course, I'm not going to live forever. It's just... it freaks me out. Like, I can say "I'm going to die one day." and that day might be tomorrow, and I have to accept the fact that it's true and no matter how hard I pray or cry, that's never going to change. It might be tomorrow for all I know. 

What scares me is that when I die, I won't be alive anymore. And yeah, I know, that's the point. But I wouldn't be able to see Josh or... or that blonde girl in Sacarver's district that I think is cute, or...

Or the view outside Dema. The towering cliffs, and the river that threads through Trench. The beryl green colour of the forest that lies like a blot of ink against the white canvas sky. The vultures waiting atop the central towers, huge and black and daunting, like a bad omen. The dried yellow flowers in my drawer that I picked from the mountainside. One for each failed escape. 

Just blackness. Endless, looming blackness. Heaven, or hell, maybe, but I would still be dead. And that's what scares me. 

I guess I could stop pushing them down. Let these thoughts consume me until I didn't even care what would happen after I died. Me a year ago wouldn't have even thought about it. But I guess I'm different now. And there's no point waiting for science to discover some miraculous serum that they could inject into our necks and make us all immortal. (And even if they did, let's be real, I would never take it.) 

I guess it's ironic for a suicidal person to say they're scared of death. It's pretty funny actually, now I think about it. But it's true. (I think maybe that's why I realised that I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to die, or whether I just wanted to stop living.)

But I don't want to think about that right now. It's late enough that nothing is clear anymore. Thoughts crawl sluggishly through my skull, all speaking at the same time, drowning each other out in their clamour to be heard. (This is usually how I get to sleep. The thoughts don't stop, they just sort of become one monolithic buzz.)

I've been trying to sever my brain from my body. Metaphorically, obviously. To entertain the fantasy, even just for a couple of seconds, that I'm not me. That suddenly, Nico wouldn't look at me and see every weakness, every little string of insecurity for him to jerk like a marionette whenever he wants to. It feels like I'm floating, seeing my body from third person, a ghost amongst dead men walking. Suddenly it feels like the whole world is made of paper. Like if I tried hard enough, I could reach out and tear it down. 

If I could become someone else, what would happen? If I ignored the thoughts, would they just go away? Would the Bishops stop looking at me like I was fresh meat? (I could never ignore them. They're too loud. Everything else in my head shrinks to grey next to their blinding ostentation.)

Maybe if I keep doing it, if I keep morphing, I'll have enough time to make some sort of escape. I don't even know if this is the real me. Maybe this version of me is as fake as the memories the Bishops put in my head when I arrived here. They were supposed to make me believe that I had always been here. It's supposed to be a security measure, so we don't try to escape. (No matter how bad something is, if people think it's always been that way, they won't protest.) I never believed it. Not for one second. I guess it helps when you don't trust your brain to start with. To be honest, I really don't care if I'm 'real'. If there ever was a 'real' me, I don't remember it. All I have is right now, day by day.

The sun's starting to rise again, but its light never quite seems to stretch into Dema. I remember birds used to sing in the early morning back in Columbus. I haven't heard a bird for years.

I think I might go to sleep soon.

For now, I think I'll put my faith in whoever's up there, 'cause there's no use in putting faith in Vialism.

It's funny how the Bishops teach us that faith is the greatest evil of them all, faith and hope. To have faith is to be dependent. To be faithless is the goal. Not even atheist. I mean like, not having faith in anything. Yet they still ask for us to have faith in them.

I know there's no easy answer to it all. And if there was, would I even believe it?

I think I just have to keep fighting, for now. Lame as it sounds. (I don't fight. I shrivel, like a dying flower.)

I think that as long as I keep pushing back against their teachings, they won't have a total grasp on me. As long as I keep questioning it, as long as I remember what's on the other side of the Limit, I'll still have a chance of making an escape. Even if it's in fifty years. If all I can do is keep questioning Vialism, that's what I'll do. 

And I'll try to find more people that I can trust. More people to live for. To have faith in. So, if the time comes, there's not quite so few strings for me to snip.

Maybe I'll talk to that blonde girl.


	2. the hype

The night is cold and black as I open the door of my block. I snatch a quick glance around. The streets are empty. Shadows haunt the alleyways. Still, I keep to the sides of the pavement next to the flat, where it's darker and more obscured.

I can never be too careful.

Night in Dema is strange, too say the least. Usually it's as dismal and grey as the day. But sometimes it gets so dark that you can look out your window and it feels like you're staring into a void, so black you can barely comprehend it. I know which I prefer.

I follow the road as far as Lisden's district, then take a left, heading towards the Limit. It's my favourite place to walk at night. Sometime you'll find strange messages scratched into the walls, partially erased by the Bishops, or by time. The vultures like to sit on it, looking down at us. From time to time they'll take off into the sky, flying until they're barely tiny black dots on the horizon. They remind me that there's a world outside Dema, full of life.

To get to the Limit, you have to go through the neon slabs that mark the top of the Necropolis. Here is where I'm most in danger. The neon doesn't hide a thing, and everything's out in the open. There's no dark corner to melt into. I walk especially quickly through here, making sure to place my feet only where there's ground. Something about stepping on the neon seems wrong to me.

I hurry on past.

Once I get to the Limit, I follow the edge for a couple of minutes, letting my thoughts bounce around my head until they tire themself out and my mind returns to the endless thrum of white noise that I'm used to.

After a couple of minutes of mindlessly walking, I take a moment to figure out where I am. I's pretty hard to orient yourself- every district looks the same- huge blocks of concrete bisected by a street, lit by the same bored bluish light from the neon. I guess when you've been here as long as I have, you start to pick up things. A sapling, struggling under the stone of Vetomo's district. A great chunk taken out of a wall like a frenzied animal had scraped their claws along it. A strange carving on the back of my block- five lines, placed at different angles, surrounded by a ring. 

And then I hear a noise. Not too loud, nothing that would be out of the ordinary, unless you're in Dema in the dead of night.

Talking, in the near distance. I strain my ears, but it's definitely not a Bishop. I don't recognise the voice. I pick up the pace, not quite running, just trying to get a sense of where the sound is coming from.

Suddenly, I spot something. An amber glow spilling out of a little crack in the Limit, flickering as though from a flame. I don't remember the last time I saw real fire. The light is warm and welcoming, so unlike the neon that I'm used to.

There's a piece of yellow tape above the entrance. It pulls at something in the depths of my mind, but I have no idea what it means. Though muddy and ripped, the colour is luminous in the darkness. I'm not really used to colour in Dema, except for the red cloaks of the Bishops, and my flowers. (But even they seem to be slightly drained to fit the mood of the city. Not like the tape, a brazen highlighter yellow.) 

For a moment I feel sick. The yellow twists at my mind, trying to wrench something from its depths.

I don't understand. Surely if you were so desperate to stay secret that you met up in the dead of night, you wouldn't want to broadcast your location for everyone to see? I creep closer, unsure what to expect.

The opening is small, so I have to be careful, but the night is black enough that I feel myself collapse into darkness. There's someone talking to the crowd, standing in a little clearing at the front of the room. It's the blonde girl from Sacarver's district, the one I've had a crush on for years. She's holding a torch, and the flames dance bright and orange. She has the most wonderful eyes. They're so blue, I've never seen anything like it. They shine in the firelight. 

"I've escaped three times now." she says. She says it as though she's proud of it. And she says she's escaped three times, I notice. Not that she's been retrieved, like I would phrase it.

I try to edge quietly into the room, but every head snaps straight around to me, faces wrought with fear. I feel myself go red. My ears are burning. I hold my hands up. "Sorry."

"No! Come in, come in," someone says from the front row. It's a boy, about my age. He has blond dreads almost to his shoulders, and he's wearing a green jacket covered in strips of the same yellow tape. "We just thought you were a Bishop."

I laugh weakly. "Yeah, no. Definitely not."

I sit right at the back, amongst the scrunched up balls of paper and empty ink bottles, watching the blonde girl. She seems to be nearing the end of her introduction when someone taps me on the shoulder. Olive skin, long eyelashes, dark brown hair. "You're new right?"

I nod. 

"You gonna introduce yourself then?"

"Oh. Uh....what do I have to do?"

"Just like...name, district, why you came tonight, whatever you can come up with really."

"Ah, right." I make my way up gingerly to the front. There's so many people watching me, eyes piercing in the low light.

Jenna passes me the torch, and I let the heat of the fire blaze on my skin, foreign yet comforting.

I take a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, um. My name's Tyler. I'm from Nico's district. I've escaped...uh, I can't quite remember..." I scratch the back of my neck, glaringly self-conscious.

The blonde girl nods at me from the first row, and something inside me loosens slightly. I take a deep breath and continue.

"Oh. Well yeah. It's been more than once anyway." I smile, talking directly to her now. "To be honest, I came here by accident. I still don't know what's going on." I laugh to myself, looking at the floor. "I barely even know what's going on normally."

"That's a big reason the Bishops succeed so well with what they're doing." someone says from the corner of the room. Bleach blond curly hair, tired eyes, and skin so pale it looks like paper. "They keep their methods surrounded in mystery, and they only ordain when they're sure you're fully indoctrinated."

He stands up. "Seeing as Tyler's so new, and the AAG is only a couple months away, I think we should reiterate our mission."

I pass back the torch, grateful to sink back into the shadows.

I sit down in the front row, next to Jenna. I offer her an awkward smile. "What's the AAG?" I whisper.

"Annual Assemblage of the Glorified."

"Ah, right."

"Words have power, remember. Don't do the Niners' job for them," she says.

The Niners. It takes me a second to figure out what she means.

She smiles, and I feel a chill run down my back. "Jenna."

"Sorry?"

"That's my name, Jenna."

"Oh! Right, sorry. My name's Tyler."

She grins at me. "I know."

Jenna. It suits her. She seems to glow in the dark, a halo of golden light surrounding her.

I used to think she was an angel. An angel of death, or something. Guiding me gently to my grave. But she's so...alive. Like every colour I can't describe. Everything is so grey here, especially me. I'm so nondescript that sometimes I think that I blend into the furniture. I think if they opened me up they'll find leaden blood creeping through ashen lungs. Like a shadow person.

The man at the front has been talking this entire time, and I kick myself for not focusing. He could've been saying something really important.

"The west wall has been blocked off, so we're thinking east is the best shout. We haven't made contact with the Banditos as of yet, but we're hoping they will meet us at the breach location."

"How do you know they'll come?" someone asks.

The guy shrugs. "We don't. But we've been studying the watchers, and we know that the AAG is the best time for it, 'cos we can use it as a sort of diversion. We'll be having to risk being smeared." Several people break out into low mutters.

I've been smeared several times. It's... I don't really have the words. I'd say it's the lowest I've ever been, but I'm not sure if that's even true. It's like blackness. You feel so heavy that every step is a chore. It's hard to describe when the feeling's so intense but at the same time so empty.

"Do you know the breach location?" someone else calls out.

He shakes his head. "Not as of yet. We're hoping for more information, but just in case nothing comes through, I'll reiterate. This is dangerous. We know that. It's likely that people will be captured and smeared. We're hoping for it to be quiet, so we can get as many people out of Dema as possible, but we can't be sure. From then, we will head True East, journey through Trench, towards Slowtown." Around me, people nod and mutter strange words I've never heard. I should feel lost, but I feel oddly at home here, among these strangers with their yellow tape and their True East. My head is buzzing with a million new words, but I'm comforted by his certainty. We will journey through Trench. We will. 

"Banditos," the man says. He seems to be addressing all of us. The word sounds familiar to me, and I like the way it rolls around my head. Bandito. It says defiance. "We'll update you again when we have more information. Remember, Dema don't control us." People murmur it back. Dema don't control us.

I repeat it under my breath, just to ingrain it into my brain. Dema don't control us.

People start to file out, but I stay, reeling from everything I've heard. I barely understand any of it, but I feel like it's just what I was waiting for. I can't wait to go back and tell Josh everything.

I turn to Jenna as she's making her way out. "See you around."

She smiles at me, all pink and blue and gold. "I hope so." 

She reaches into her back pocket and pulls something out- a crumpled piece of paper. It's a picture- no, a map, a map of Dema, the districts laid out concentrically around the nine central towers. It's littered with cryptic symbols like the ones scratched into the walls of the Limit. The only one I can decipher is from an arrow pointing off from the Necropolis, labeled Dead Man's View.

I scrunch my eyebrows together in confusion. "What's this?"

"The map the Banditos gave me, the first time I escaped with them," she says. She looks at me pointedly, analysing my reaction. "I don't know, I've pretty much memorised it by now. I thought someone else could find a use for it."

"Thank you," I say quietly, because I don't know what else to say. Because I don't want to scare her off- I don't want to jump at her like I jumped at Josh when we first met.

We join the crowd as they slip quietly out of the door and into the night. It's as black as ever, but something in me feels lighter. The cold hits me sharply, and I feel like I've opened my eyes for the first time in a long while.

I notice something stitches hastily into the sleeve of her jacket, a patch, I think. F, P and E in yellow thread, with a thick line running through the centre.

"What's that?"

She raises an eyebrow at me. "I thought you said you'd escaped before?"

I try to swallow, but my throat's gone dry. "I did. I have."

I don't know if you could call what the Bishops do torture. They seem to think they're saving you. They call it proselytising, which sounds oddly clinical for the amount of times I remember crying myself to sleep in the Tower. But it's a very special, personal kind of pain when you're in there. Days, sometimes weeks by yourself, in total isolation, with nothing to do but stare at the cement walls- bare, except for the Vow of Silence. I can recite it by heart, even now.

I remember some things.

A bishop, red cloak waving in the wind like a smear of blood. His hands are outstretched, reaching for me. He does not move; he is waiting for me to give in. I feel heavy, so heavy I'm sure if I took a step I would fall right through the ground.

"It's just a bit...foggy."

She seems to understand.

"You know, FPE, like the edict they give you after you try to escape?"

I have a sudden memory of walking back to my room. It is dark, and I am tired, so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. There's a letter posted on my door. It reads

IDENTIFIED AS

FAILED PERIMETER ESCAPE

BY DEMA COUNCIL

VIOLATION OF SECTION 15398642 14

OF VIALIST CODE OF CONDUCT

I take the notice off my door and place it in a drawer which is half full with papers bearing the same message. FAILED PERIMETER ESCAPE. Over and over.

Oh.

"It's coming back now."

"Yeah, well the Banditos wanted to take that and sort of...twist it. Something to be proud of, you know? A reason to keep fighting." She takes my hand, and I ignore the flames that lick the inside my chest. "It helps me to write it down somewhere I can see. In case...you know." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a marker, scribbling something along my arm. When she's done, she straightens up and smiles at me again. An angel, I'm sure of it now. 

"Nice to meet you, Ty," she says. Normally I don't let anyone but Josh call me that. But because it's her, and because I'm a sap, I allow it. "I hope I see you again." 

I nod, unable to speak. She walks out, leaving me reeling from everything that has just happened.

I look down at my arm. In her neat, looping font, it reads: the Few, the Proud and the Emotional.

The nine little white circles glare up at me from the map. I grin.

It's going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah! maybe not my favourite chapter, but the next to are definitely up there, so...see you then, maybe. hope you guys had a good day <3
> 
> pear


	3. neon gravestones

I haven’t seen Tyler in at least two months. I’m so fucking worried about him. I know Nico’s getting to him. I keep asking him to come out with me, have lunch with me, come watch the stars, whatever. Mostly I hear non-committal “Uh-huh,” and he goes back to his room. Doing nothing all day is bad for anybody, but for Tyler… He needs to be doing stuff all the time. He gets addicted to creating. I used to think it was unhealthy, I don't know, maybe it was. All I know is that I’d rather him be up at three in the morning scribbling song lyrics than lying in his bed all day, watching the minute hand steal into the next hour, another day dead.

And I know I worry about everything, but this isn’t irrational, I’m sure of it. It’s all-consuming (Which I’m sure Reisdro would love, he’s always rattling on about succumbing to fear and how it is the force that drives the Universe or whatever.)

He’s my first thought, every morning. Not even in a romantic obsessive way. As in the check on Tyler to make sure he hasn’t offed himself kind of way. I don’t know, it’s just recently, he’s been especially bad, I guess.

Well. Not really. It used to be a lot worse. He doesn’t believe in Vialism anymore, (Or at least as much as he used to.) which is good, I guess. I like to take a bit of credit for that. Then again, once Tyler’s decided something, it’s very hard to get him to change his mind. He’s stubborn like that. I have a feeling the doubts had been chipping away at him for a while.

He doesn’t want to die as much anymore, which is also good. But I really can’t tell anymore. He hasn’t left his room in weeks. Maybe months. 

I get the sudden urge to go see him. I practically never go, because he’s in Nico’s district, and while it’s not like you’re not allowed to… well, it’s Nico, isn’t it? Everyone’s either too fucking terrified to go near him, or too smeared to know.

I leg it to his block, which is a bit weird. There’s not really much reason to run in Dema. I have a sudden memory- I’m running through Trench. The air is cold and sweet on my face. Something to live for, huh.

His room is at the very top, which means flights and flights of stairs, but somehow my legs are faster than my brain, and I barely register the fatigue.

I bang on the door.

“Tyler! Tyler, please, I need to talk to you,”

Silence. 

“Tyler, please—”

“Josh?”

He’s standing at the end of the corridor, right at the top of the opposite staircase.

“What’s wrong?”

I have to gasp for breath for a couple of seconds. My brain’s catching up now, and I’m starting to realise that I don’t really have anything to say at all. I just wanted to see him.

“I— Wait, where are you going?” I say. 

He smiles, stupidly. I missed that. “Figured something out.”

He starts going down casually, like he hasn’t just said the most cryptic thing ever. He looks back, but I haven’t moved.

“Come on, Josh,” he says. He takes the stairs two at a time.

“Tyler,” I say, watching him from the top landing, “Are we just gonna pretend that I haven’t seen you for months. What happened? I was worried.”

He stops and looks up at me, rubbing the back of his neck like he does when he’s anxious. 

“Look, I’m sorry, Josh. I’m fine now, okay? I’ll explain stuff later. I’ve just…” he wrings his hands, “I’ve gotta show you something.”

When Tyler is doing something, he kind of gets tunnel vision, so I make sure to check for Bishops before every street crossing. I mean, it’s not like we’re doing anything wrong (Not yet, anyway.) but you never know with the Bishops. ‘Specially Reisdro. He loves to spring random shit on you at a moments notice. He says it helps us maintain ‘a cautious approach to the world’ which really means that he takes great pleasure in constantly terrifying us. 

I pass a group from my district. (I never know what to call the followers of Vialism. Vialists? Listo calls his district his ’disciples’. Like Jesus or something. Bet they’re good fun at parties.)

You can tell Reisdro’s district apart by just their hands. Their nails are bitten down to stubs, and the skin is red and sore from picking. I absentmindedly trace the skin around my nails, bumpy and barely healed. 

Tyler’s still going at full speed. In fact, I think he’s going faster. It’s very hard to look inconspicuous walking this fast, but I don’t want to break into a jog ‘cause that would probably bring even more attention. Luckily we’re fast approaching the Limit, which ensures far less people around.

And then I realise. We’re heading towards the Necropolis. My breathing quickens ever so slightly. I fucking hate the Necropolis. I don’t go in there unless absolutely necessary, and even then it’s a struggle. (Bad memories. It reminds me too much of when I almost got ordained. Glad I escaped that. Plus, all the graves are slightly off-putting.)

But at the last minute, he takes a right, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I wasn’t ready to face the Necropolis anytime soon. It’s just… so much. 

It’s basically a morgue, without the bodies. Wait no, scrap that, the Necropolis- (or the Glorious Vista, as the bishops call it) is more like a trophy room. Where Nico can count and polish his shiny strips of neon as if they’re nothing more than pretty lights. As if they’re not representative of actual people who’ve died. I don’t like to think about it. It makes me too angry.

It’s supposed to be a commemoration, but it feels like a slap in the face. As if it’s something we should aspire towards.   
It’s sick. They aren’t even buried there.  
Everyone knows what happens to bodies in Dema.

I look back at the central towers that loom over Dema, huge and grey, like giant industrial chimneys.   
The bodies are placed on their district’s tower, and then it’s free game for the vultures. I don’t know what happens to the bones., though.

The Bishops use the Necropolis as much as possible. Announcements, sermons, whatever excuse.   
Every year, they hold the “Annual Assemblage of the Glorified”, where they read off all the names of the “enlightened”- those who’ve added to the neone. Vulture food. It’s supposed to be ethereally beautiful or whatever.  
I wouldn’t know. The last few years I’ve managed to sneak out, despite it being mandatory attendance. Anytime before that, I don’t remember. It’s one of the few benefits of the Bishops indoctrination. The memory loss means I don’t have to remember all that shit. All the stuff that I’ve seen, that I hope no-one else has to see ever.

We finally move out of the daylight and through a little door, barely wide enough to fit a person. I certainly wouldn’t have noticed it. It’s dark as hell, but Tyler seems to know his way around- he ups his speed again, taking lefts and rights so fast I marvel at how he isn’t lost. Everything looks the same to me. Same concrete walls and floor. Same thin rectangular windows, barely big enough to let in light. 

The only thing I notice that’s different to the rest of Dema is the etchings in the walls. The first one reads: 

Keep your wits about you while you got 'em  
And there’s a bunch of strange symbols and phrases, too. There’s one that I keep noticing. It’s scratched everywhere now- the walls, the floor, the ceiling. I jog up to Tyler.

“Tyler, what does ‘FPE’ mean?” Something about the phrase tugs at my mind, but I can’t think where I’ve seen it before.   
He grins. “I’ll explain later.”  
I roll my eyes. Just like Tyler. “Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”  
He holds a finger up for silence. I sigh. Always one for drama. “Wait,” he says, quietly. 

The ground is getting more and more uneven, the line between the floor and the walls less defined. I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t the Bishops who built this. It feels so different to everything in Dema with its brutalist concrete structures. Maybe it’s a disused passage that someone has continued. 

We turn into another corridor, but this time it’s a dead end. I start to turn around, expecting Tyler to as well. But he keeps going, dropping into a crouch near the end.   
“What is it?”  
He looks back at me, still grinning in that stupid way he does when he knows something I don’t.

“Trapdoor.”  
I join him at the end and sure enough, there’s a small square of metal on the floor, a handle protruding from the other side.   
I feel my brows knot. “To where?” I say, exasperated. “What is this, Ty?”

He takes a deep breath. “This is Dead Man’s View.”   
He says it like it should mean something to me. If anything, I’m more bewildered than before.  
“What? What’s Dead Man’s View? I don’t understand—”

“It’s better if I show you,” he says, all cryptic. (I swear, if I wasn’t so worried about him I might just punch him.) “You might want to look away, it’s pretty painful until your eyes adjust.”

I hear the creak of the trapdoor as Tyler opens it, and suddenly everything goes bright white, even with my eyelids squeezed shut. I think the brightest light I’ve ever seen. 

And then it hits me. We’re not just close to the Necropolis. We’re going into it. Fuck. Fuck.

My throat is closing up. “Tyler, I...”  
I don’t just hate the Necropolis. I’m terrified of it. 

I look at Tyler. His eyes are blazing, alive as I’ve ever seen him. I bite my lip. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Josh, please. This might be our only chance to see it. The Bishops are sweeping up all the remains of the Banditos—” He stops himself.  
“What’re Banditos?”  
He waves me aways. “I’ll explain later. Josh, please. I need to do this.”  
He’s so stubborn. And I can never bring myself to say no to him.

I sigh, take a couple of deep breaths. My mind’s paralysed with fear, but somehow my body manages to follow Tyler down the ladder, eyes burning from the light. 

It is beautiful, in a way. Alluring. It’s like there’s some magnetic force dragging me to them. In the pin-drop silence, every move we make reverberates and multiplies hundreds of times.   
I look to the right, and there’s the huge pane of glass that reveals the graves to everyone in Dema. I think about how many times I must’ve stood there, watching brilliant light. If I remember anything, it’s how the neon seemed from the Vista: almost ethereal, fluid and glowing. The pull of the lights was more of a kind welcome, as though this was the place we were meant to be along.

Inside it isn’t quite so magic. It’s sharper, almost painful to look at. And it feels like the lights are taunting us.

“Josh?”  
Josh. Josh. Josh. Josh. It’s like the lights are whispering my name, beckoning me closer.  
Tyler drags me away. “Don’t listen to them.”  
So he hears it, too.   
“Look, Josh.”   
He points at the gravestone closest to us. It’s the only open grave. 

I doubt there’s going to be anything in it- the graves are just symbolic, after all. But I still go up to it and peer over the edge, into the black soil.

Six feet down, there’s a skeleton. Bones laid out perfectly, as though they had just been discovered at an archaeological dig or something. The skull has been placed at an unnatural angle, so even in death, it can see the neon. I remember what Tyler called this place - Dead Man’s View. I think I understand why.  
The eye sockets are so deep and black I feel as though I’m being watched, and again, I feel that strange pull.   
But I know better.

So this is what happened to the bones. 

I hear Tyler take a long, ragged breath, and realise I’ve been holding mine.  
I hear voices, and I drag Tyler behind a column. He barely resists.

Two Bishops, of three, maybe.  
They make a beeline straight for the open grave. 

I hold my breath. 

One of the Bishops starts speaking in a low, sombre tone. I think it’s Nico. “You can rest now, Benjamin. You are safe in the neon.”

They move their arms in time, almost dancing. It reminds me of the Genesis ceremony they hold in the central hall for creating the neon, in front of the Monument of Exaltation in the Main Hall. (I hate that it’s called Genesis, when that’s not what it is at all. It’s anything but a beginning.)

Finally, they leave, and Tyler takes a sharp breath. I can feel him start to shudder, the way he does when he’s trying to keep himself from crying. 

I turn to him, keeping my voice low in case the Bishops decide to come back. “Did you know him?”  
He nods. “Ben Foster. He… he was on my floor. I used to talk to him at breakfast.” He closes his eyes. A single tear runs down his face.  
“Oh.” I swallow. He’s clasping and unclasping his fists, and I desperately want to grab them, anything to let him know that I’m here. “I’m so sorry, Ty.”  
He shakes his head.   
“You know what he told me? Before he…” he gestures to the neon. “He said he was going to teach the Bishops a lesson. He said… he said he wanted to go out with a bang.” He swallows thickly. “He said that they’d be sorry.”  
He folds over and sobs. “I— I didn’t know what he meant. And now he’s dead. And I could’ve stopped him. I could’ve stopped him, Josh!” He wrings his hands, and I want to grab him and shake him and say IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. Because it isn't. But he keeps going, words tumbling out of his mouth so fast they’re barely comprehensible.

“And he fell right into the Bishops trap. He did exactly what they wanted. He died for NOTHING!”   
He screams the last word, and the graves sing it back, discordant and painful.  
Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.  
He rubs his forehead hard, hands raking through his hair.  
“I— I need to get out of here,” he says, so quiet I can barely hear him. “I never should’ve come.”  
I crouch down with him, trying to soothe his breathing or something, anything to stop him doing something stupid. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. My mind’s racing so hard I can barely concentrate. Shut up. SHUT UP.

But he stands up calmly, takes a deep breath.  
And runs straight towards the newly packed earth of Ben’s grave.  
“Tyler, no!” I say, but the words leave my mouth too late. He strikes the neon manically, again and again. He’s crying audibly now.   
The glass shatters, neon mixing with the ruby blood spilling from his hands.   
I grab him from behind, holding him firm. I drag him away.   
He lets out a strangled scream, and I’m terrified the Bishops will find us here. If they see what Tyler did, they— I don’t know. I’ve endured the Bishops torture before, but I know this is different. The neon is sacred.  
“Let me go!” He scrabbles at my hands, desperate. But I hold fast and steady.  
I hold him ‘til his sobs subside into long, straggling gasps, and then finally something resembling normality. His hands are still wet and slippy with his blood and now so are mine, and his face is red and tearstained, but at least he’s alive.  
“Josh, I… please don’t make me go back to that room.”  
“I won’t.”  
I lead him gently to the ladder, praying that I won’t have to carry him. But he practically runs up it. He’s as desperate as I am to get out of here.   
⊬

I take him to the secret hole in the Limit, close to my district, There's a little gap in the roof where you can see the sky. Here, the colours are less marred with grey.

Sometimes, if you look hard enough, you can see stars, tiny pinpricks of light in the black. For years, that was the only real light I ever saw.  
Here is the only place that I’m not afraid when the night comes.

There’s a couple of other people here. Technically, coming here is illicit, but the Bishops haven’t found it yet.

We lie right next to each other, listening to the wind as it shoots through the tiny skylight. 

It’s silent for a while.

And then after what could be minutes or hours, Tyler turns to me.   
“Josh?”

“Yeah?”

Look at your eyes, Tyler. They’re so alive. They’re so fucking alive. 

“If I do kill myself—”

“What? No—”

“No, please, just listen. If I do…” He swallowed thickly.

My mind is telling me to stop him right there, to never let the sentence poison the air between us. But I know him. I know how his mind works (At least, I think I do. Sometimes.) I know the words would hang at the front of his mind until they wrapped around his neck like a noose.

“Please, don’t mourn me. Well, I mean, you can, obviously. It’s not like I would be around to stop you.” He lets out a harsh laugh.   
“Maybe like for a day or whatever. But just…”

It’s like his words are scraping the surface of his throat. My head hurts from keeping the tears in, and God, every time he opens his mouth, it feels like he’s reaching down my throat and twisting my windpipe.

“Just… don’t be too sad, alright? Find a new friend, please, just replace me—”

I sit up straight. “What the fuck, Tyler?” He might as well have just slapped me straight in the face. 

He sits up, too, looking at me dead serious, like he’s figured it all out. “No, Josh, you don’t understand. I know what the Bishops want now, the end goal of Vialism. If I kill myself, you kill yourself as well. Chain of events. Double the deaths, and the Niners barely even touch us. Don’t let them take you, too.”  
The Niners. He’s talking weird again.

I don’t know what to say. He’s never this blunt.

“Just move onto someone else, okay?” He’s so solemn I could hit him. 

“Tyler.” I reach out and touch his face. He flinches, but I bring my hand to the back of his head and pull him into my chest. “Never fucking say anything like that ever again.” I can feel him start to cry against my chest,(I don't know how he has any left.) and I rub my thumb back and forth across his neck, in the way that has always calmed him down. “You’re not going to kill yourself.”   
I say it so forcefully that I think I believe it.

My head is spinning and my throat hurts so bad. 

Silence. The awful kind. The kind that hurts, that lays heavy on your chest until you started gasping.

“I won’t let you die, Tyler.” 

He reaches down for my hand and grips it like it’s the only thing he has left. 

“I won’t let you die.” I could shout it ‘til my voice is hoarse and broken. But I think he understands.

I listen to Tyler’s breathing slow ‘til he falls asleep. I lie there, watching the sky turn from blue to orange, covered in tears and blood, neither of which are mine. And then I let myself cry. I don’t really do crying very much, but I do now. I cry until my chest hurts and there’s nothing left. 

In the early morning, when I should’ve long been asleep, I hear him muttering something in his sleep, over and over.

"They won't get them." 

I don’t know what it means. I’m not sure I ever will. But I know that, at least now, in this moment, I have him. 

Fight it, Tyler, I think. For me. I'm going to get us out of here, but I need for you to stay alive.


	4. my blood

I wake with the sun, when the merest streaks of yellow spill across the concrete floor.   
I get up as quietly as possible, trying my best not to disturb Tyler. In the light, I see that there’s more people in here with us- maybe eight or nine. Last night was too dark to make out anything, and besides, I had much more pressing things to think about.  
I construct a makeshift stool from some rotting crates from the corner of the room, and heave myself through the skylight, onto the roof. From up here, I can see everything. The whole city laid out before me. And to my left, I can see Trench.   
Huge and vibrant and infinite.  
The view is almost hypnotising, how the colours seem to twist and melt and shift. I would never have guessed that there were so many shades of green.  
I’ve been out there before, a couple of times. I’ll be out there again. Soon. I just know it.  
The sun begins to peek its red-gold head above the cliffs. I can hear someone fumbling with the crate below.   
It’s Tyler. He looks up at me apologetically and smiles. There’s still blood and dirt on his face from yesterday. I lean over and grab hold of his arms, pulling him over the edge.   
We sit in silence, watching the sun slowly take its place in the sky.   
"We've gotta leave, Josh," he says, finally.   
And suddenly, I feel lighter than air. Because that was the one thing that I was truly afraid of- that Tyler would see what he saw in the Necropolis and internalise it all until he ended up as dead as Ben Foster.  
That's the thing about Dema. You're not even supposed to be able to talk to people about how you feel in the first place. That's pretty much the first thing the Bishops teach you. That you are alone.  
So even having a friend feels like a little rebellion in itself.  
"Thank fuck," I say. We look at each other and laugh. Long, stupid, giggly laughs that carry over the walls. I don’t even really know what we're laughing at. It's just right now, everything seems so ridiculous that it's all I can bring myself to do.  
"I can't do this anymore Josh, I can't live like this. Not after…"   
Not after yesterday. I nod. "I know."  
"Do you hate them?" he says, quietly.  
My initial reaction is to say yes, yes, of course I do. To scream it to the sky. But part of me is conflicted.   
I've always had this feeling that what the Bishops were doing was wrong, but I could never seem to pin my finger on it. And even trying to articulate it screamed blasphemy so I just shut up. But I think Tyler gets it. It's not even the teachings anymore. Most people start to realise there's something slightly off after they think about them for too long. No, it's the city itself.   
If I were to describe Dema to someone who'd never been, I'd say it was a dull knife. Barely enough edge to be a hazard, but anything can be a weapon if you try hard enough. And in a way, it's worse. The dullness. like a continual ache that eats away at you day after day, not enough to ask for help, but enough to know that it hurts. Constantly. Sometimes I wish they would just get it over with.  
"What was the stuff that you were gonna tell me?" I ask.  
"Hm?"  
"That weird phrase thing on the walls- you said you were gonna tell me what it meant."  
His eyes light up. "Oh, yeah. So—"  
But before he can continue, there's shouts from downstairs. The Bishops. I don't know how they found us, but they're coming.   
"Tyler, the Bishops, we gotta—" But he seems to have frozen.  
Why did I think the roof was a good idea? I knew there were limited points of escape. I mentally kick myself.  
I can get down, but I don't know how to get Tyler down with me. Suddenly I realise my hands are shaking, and I know it's not from the cold.  
"Please, someone—" I utter through the skylight.  
But they’re already turning away. After all we’ve been through, they’re fucking turning away. Cowards. Cowards. I could scream it down their throats ‘til my voice was harsh and prickly as the nettles that grow from the skirting boards in my room.  
I guess I can’t really blame them. I don’t know what they’ve been through. And it’s not like they even know him. To them, he’s just another victim of the Bishops, another dead-eyed monster they’ve created. He was here before them and they’ll watch him fall. Little by little. Crumble away, ‘til he’s no more than ash in the wind.   
The sounds he’s making tear my throat open. He’s gasping for breath, choking on the tears and saliva mixing in his mouth, sweat making his forehead shine in the limp light. “Tyler?” His eyes barely glance in my direction. “Fuck, Tyler, we’ve gotta go. They’re coming.”  
Mutters ring through the room below. They’re close. We have just enough time to scrape it- just. Tyler’s eyes spark recognition. Everyone else has left minutes ago. They know what happens if the Bishops catch you somewhere you shouldn’t be. They have enough sense to be selfish.  
His eyes sparkle with tears, and all I can think of is how I held him yesterday while he sobbed into my shoulder. All I can think is of how we need to leave this city, now.  
He holds out a hand.  
It’s rough and grubby, nails chewed down to the beds. I take it, and pull him to his feet, giving him a second to find his balance. They’ll be here any second.   
I drop down to the floor below, and somehow he manages it too, though he's still breathing far too fast, taking in shallow gulps of air, his shoulders rising and falling in pain.   
I take the last torch from the wall. It’s barely sparking, only giving out enough light to illuminate a couple inches of rock face. I blow on it gently, and again, and the flame catches. Tyler loops his arm around my neck for support.   
“C’mon,” I mutter. There’s a passageway down from here, put out of use years ago. And for good reason, too. It’s hell to go down, especially in the dark, ‘cause there’s nothing to hold onto, and the stairs are uneven and steep as shit. But it means we don’t have to run along the rooftops and skirt down the pipes, which in Tyler’s condition, would be literally impossible.   
One day, before we escape, I’m going to find some rope and hammer in a handrail. So people can see the stars without falling to their deaths on the way down. Tyler goes after me, ‘cause I’m steadier, and I know that if he falls, at least he’ll fall into me.   
The flame is dwindling. I’ve tried blowing on it again, but there’s not enough wood in there to sustain it. The light’s pathetic now, I have to squint my eyes to see where to place my feet.   
“Tyler?”  
“Mm.”  
“You alright?”  
“Mm.”  
I know he’s not. I’m not stupid. I just want to say something, anything. Fuck, I don’t know. Let’s talk about the weather.  
We’re almost at the bottom. The walls flatten out here, and the steps are shallower, less rough.  
I’m so busy trying to not trip, I don’t hear the footsteps.   
My hearing’s usually amazing. It has to be, otherwise you’ll get all sorts creeping up on you anytime they feel like it.  
It’s Tyler who notices. I feel the air on the back of my neck change. Faster.   
“What’s wrong?”  
He doesn’t say anything. Just keeps breathing, faster and faster.  
“Tyler, what’s wrong?”  
He goes silent. And then I hear it. Tyler’s hand wraps around my mouth. I think my heart stops beating.   
“This way,” the voice says. It’s Reisdro, I’m almost sure of it. I know that voice, cruel and unfaltering. The temperature seems to drop at least ten degrees. I smoulder the flame with my fist and place it on the floor in one silent movement.  
There’s one last thing I have. I’ve never told anyone else about it- I hate people touching my shit, and also they’d definitely steal it. Couple weeks ago, I found a notch, right where the stairs end. It was obviously manmade- carved out crudely with a knife. Tiny, barely big enough to slip a book in. Easy for your eyes to skip over. Since then, I’ve widened it to the size of my fist, chipping away at the rock with nails and shards of brick- whatever I can find, really.  
I reach in there now. Tyler’s holding my hand so tightly I have to bite my lip to stop myself crying out. He looks at me with strange cognition.   
The weight of the bat is reassuring in my hand. It’s sturdy, fashioned from pine wood, from one of the trees that surround the compound. But reassurance does shit all when all you can do is wait the last few seconds until the Bishops inevitably round the corner. My breath catches in my mouth, heart beating in my throat.  
Tyler is muttering something- so quiet I'm not sure if it's for me or him, but suddenly I feel his hand grip mine tighter. It hurts, but I won’t let go. I won’t let go, even if we fall. And if they take you, I’ll go with you. I’ll go with you ‘til the end, you hear me?   
I think he does.  
The voices stop, and suddenly they’re here. Three of them. Barely feet away.   
“Joshua,” Reisdro says. I hate that he calls me that. I hate him. I hate him.   
“What are you doing out of the compound?” His voice is frail and creaky. It sends uncertainty rattling through my bones. I say nothing. I don’t have to, it wasn’t a question. He knows exactly what I’m doing.  
“And is that… Tyler?” He has a different voice for Tyler. Softer, somehow. Like the wind whistling through a graveyard.  
“Tyler? You can come out. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you.”   
Bullshit.  
They keep taking steps toward us, hands held out, like they’re walking toward small frightened animals.  
I’m not frightened. I’m not fucking frightened of you. Take another step. Go on, try. I’ll fucking kill you.  
I hold the bat in front of me like it’s a shotgun.


	5. legend

The Bishops watch us like zoo exhibits, wary, as though we are about to attack.

"Dema don't control us," I mutter, so quietly I don't think even I can hear. "Dema don't control us."

I scrunch my eyes shut, but even then I can see Reisdro's, cruel and black beneath his veil.   
He's speaking to me, using the sort of voice people use to coax kittens down from high places.  
I don't hear him. In this moment, everything seems cold and far away. Blurry, like when your eyes are tired. All I can feel is Josh's thumb as he rubs it back and forth over my hand. I concentrate on slowing my breathing in time. Back, forth, back, forth. My stomach seems to ease ever so slightly.

I take a deep breath and open my eyes. 

Reisdro is still there, flanked by two others- Sacarver and...Vetomo, maybe? It's so dark here, and the watery, straggling light from the top of the staircase casts strange, ugly shadows across the Bishops’ faces. For a moment, I'm sure they're monsters. 

How the dark makes demons of dreams, and monsters of men.

Josh holds his bat, half disgusted, half defiant, almost daring them to come closer. (I have no clue where he got it- it seemed like he plucked it straight from thin air.)  
Their cloaks grin at me in their malevolent red, cruel and proud, like slashes of blood in the darkness.  
I lean forward slightly, tilting from the balls of my feet to the tips of my toes, and it feels as though I'm about to take flight. To soar right over their heads, over the city, away from all this, away from everything until there's just me and the endless sky. To be a vulture.

And then...Jenna.  
She appears all aglow behind the Bishops, flickering gold like firelight, looking every part my guardian angel.

She sees me and closes her eyes for a second. She mutters something under her breath, then looks at me and taps her hand. It's quick and discreet, nothing the Bishops would ever notice. But I know what she means.

I've written over it several times now so it's stayed, tattooed onto my skin like a promise.  
I can't pretend that I understand it. But it feels important to me. And I'm holding onto the hope that one day, maybe I will understand. And that will be the day that I realise that everything will be okay. Maybe not forever. Maybe not even for long. But it will be okay. 

She turns Sacarver, and they exchange in low, hurried tones that I can't make out. Every so often Sacarver turns to look at me. Suddenly I feel stupidly small and fragile. The other two Bishops seem almost...concerned. Josh begins to lower his bat, more out of confusion than anything else.

I still find myself in that dreamlike state of apathy where I can't quite comprehend anything seriously. I understand the gravity of the situation, but it doesn't quite affect me.   
I know I should be scared of the Bishops. Of what they could do. To me. To Josh.  
I'm glad they didn't see the fire. I don't know what the possession of fire is punished with, but I know it's swift and severe. I think about the months spent in the tower, alone, tallying the days in the dust collected around the skirting boards. But it feels like a dream, like a million years ago. Like one of the Bishops' fake memories, emotionless, encircled with grey.   
It feels like my eyes have buried themselves several inches deeper into my skull and it feels like I'm no longer living my life, but rather intruding on someone else's. I barely go out of my room.

Sacarver gives a final, disgruntled nod.   
The Bishops turn on their heels in unison and sweep out, leaving us in a shocked silence. But I don't even have time to think to ask before Jenna barrages up the stairs and takes my hand.

"Thank you." I blurt out.  
How did she manage to get the Bishops to just leave like that? What did she say? Am I in trouble? Am I-

"Who are you?" Josh asks, interrupting the dizzying stream of questions. 

She eyes him suspiciously. "A friend."  
Josh turns his head to me for confirmation. I nod. 

"Why-" My throat is dry as sand. "Why did you help me?"  
"I've been looking for you all night, Tyler. I was studying the watchers with Clancy, and then Nico—" She seems to stop herself. "I just got worried. Sorry." 

Alarm bells are going off. Nico what? What happened?   
I want to ask, but she seems skittish, looking behind her to check no-one is coming, starting every time someone speaks. What’s going on? 

I shake my head. "Don't be. It was my fault." 

Josh turns again, and this time he looks bewildered.

"Who's this?" Jenna asks. She points at Josh. 

"Uh.." But Josh beats me to it. 

"I'm Josh. Tyler's friend. Reisdro's district." 

"Shit." she says. "Reisdro."  
Josh nods. "Yeah, I know."  
She laughs. "You guys have got your work cut out for you. They don't miss a trick, those guys."  
And I know she's right. Nico and Reisdro aren't exactly...lenient. (They're terrifying. They're both terrifying.)

"Sorry, wait, am I missing something? Can anyone explain what's going on?"  
Jenna ignores him. She gestures for me to come. Her hair is wild, golden strands twisting round her face.

Josh turns to me back facing Jenna completely, shielding me from view. His eyebrows arch up and meet in a harsh crease of anxiety on his forehead. "Can we trust her?"

I glance at Jenna again. She smiles at me, small but genuine. I can't help it.  
I nod at Josh. He breathes a sigh of relief. "Just needed to check."  
He turns back around. "Sorry, right. You need Tyler?"

I feel a slight jab of anger rise. I'm not just his thing he can pick up and lug around.   
But I shove it down. Not the time, Tyler.

"I just...I just wanted to...to show him something." 

"Can I come?"

"I guess," she says. Up close, I see the faint purplish rings under her eyes, the slightly glazed look that you get from a lack of sleep. She slips out of the door on hunters' feet, scanning for the Bishops.

She beckons us forward, and we both run, me slightly clumsily as I'm still light-headed from panic. 

We trace the edge of the Limit. With my grey shirt and trousers, it's as if I blend right into the wall. Jenna sticks right out in her luminous yellow. I feel smaller and grubbier than ever beside her, like a slab of wet pavement.  
She stops abruptly, checking again to see if there's anyone watching. But there's just the cruel glow of the neon.   
Not for the first time today, I think about the skull   
I saw at Dead Man's View. Ben Foster's skull, eye sockets dead and black as smear.

I suddenly feel overly exposed, like thousands of eyes are watching my every move. Thousands of skulls, white and grinning, ready to crawl out of their neon tombs and drag me down under the black, dead earth.   
I scrunch my eyes closed, but all I can see are neon ghosts. I take a deep breath. Goawaygoawaygoawaygoawaygoawaygoawaygo-  
"Tyler?" Josh says. "Jenna, is it far?"  
"Why?"   
"We need to get him away from the neon." He mutters, quiet now, like he doesn't want me to hear. But the Limit is silent as a graveyard.

And I feel indescribably guilty for being angry at Josh.

If it weren't for me, he could've left by now. He wouldn't have to constantly worry about me, poor suicidal Tyler who can't be left alone for more than a couple of minutes because he's so in his head. Poor Tyler, Nico's favourite, who's only alive because the Bishops can't decide whether to ordain him or to let Vialism run its course. Poor Tyler who doesn't even have the courage to decide whether he wants to live or die.

I stumble blindly, letting Josh lead me wherever Jenna is taking us.   
There's a painful lump in my throat that's been there for a while, and it seems hard to swallow, or even breathe.   
We walk for ten minutes in bleak silence, me trying my best to not cry again. I need to stop crying. It's getting stupid. Yeah Tyler. Crying is for weak people. You're weak. You'll never escape because you're weak and selfish and you don't deserve him.  
I know I don't.

We turn abruptly, and start heading back towards the districts. I hold my breath until the neon grows fainter behind my eyes and I start to hear the thrum of the city again. (I wouldn't call it life, exactly. There's no chatter or laughing or birds or whatever. Just the footsteps of those moving ever closer to the grave.)

I open my eyes to the brutalist concrete of the district blocks. There's barely anyone out, as expected. Everyone's probably still at breakfast, or performing their first chores of the day.

"I just assumed you'd be in your room. I don't know, you being Nico's district and all. And you weren't there so I just kind of...freaked."

Nico’s district is the only one who doesn’t have any tasks. We kind of just sit around all day. Most of us barely leave our rooms.

"Yeah. I know."

"Where were you?" I don't answer. I don't even want to think about it. 

"It doesn't matter," Josh says. "But how did you get the Bishops to leave like that? I seriously thought they were gonna kill us."  
“Same,” I say. “How did you do that? And— where are we going? You never said.”  
Jenna looks tired. She scrunches her eyes up and “Look.” She sighs. “I...  
I'll explain everything when we're out, okay? I promise."   
Josh looks at me questioningly. I mouth “Trench” at him. His eyes seem to light up at the word.  
“Thank you." I say quietly.  
She nods to me. "It's nothing. You're here now."

We walk up the stairs of a building identical to my own, except for the steel numbers on the door.  
She turns the corner on the top, revealing a small staircase.   
I seem to be coming across these more and more, I think. 

It leads to the roof.

*

Here on the rooftop, looking out over the border of Dema to the infinite sky of Trench, turning from orange to white. The vultures perch around us on the roof edge, but their eyes seem more of a comfort than a threat.We're surrounded, and for once I feel safe.  
I can see where my block is, much farther away. The vultures have always congregated on my roof.   
Jenna and Josh have both dozed off a while back. (I think Josh was running on two hours of sleep at most, and I don’t think Jenna had any, so I don’t mind.)   
They've laid their heads on my shoulders, and I don't dare move. I just want to enjoy this moment. A year ago I could've never imagined this, so close to Trench that I can taste the sweeter air, with the two people I love so much it hurts. The weight of their bodies next to mine feels like comfort. 

The vultures circle us from above, cutting impressive shapes against the dead sky.

I hope this was what Jenna wanted to show me.


	6. Chapter 6

Jenna shakes me awake in the mid afternoon, when the city is deader than ever. She points at Tyler and places a finger over her lips. I nod, extracting myself from him gently. 

"I didn't want to wake him, well I have something- I don't know if I should tell him. Yet, at least…you're his friend, right?"  
I nod.  
"Well, Nico found me watching the vultures with Clancy, and-"  
She talks cryptic like Tyler.  
"Wait, just…” She stops. “Can you explain what's going on? From the beginning, I mean,"  
"He didn't—"  
I shake my head.  
"Oh. Yeah. Of course."

She tells me about the Banditos, rebelling against Vialism. About their escape, planned for the day of Assemblage. (Today, I realise.) About how Tyler had discovered them in the dead of night, how he'd been coming to meetings the past few months. Studying the watchers. Searching for Dead Man's View. Finding other possible escape routes. Planning for every possible eventuality.

I think back through the past through months. Tyler's disappearances. His half-crazed muttering. His strange talk. It all starts to make sense. 

And I wonder, if I hadn't banged on his door last night, would I have even found out at all? Would Tyler have left without me?

And then another thought grabs at me, more painful than the last and blinding as neon.

If I hadn't found Tyler last night, would he even be alive right now?

I remember the way he sobbed into my shoulder, mumbling words soft and soaked in pain.

I know what I think would've happened. I wish I didn't.

She tells me about last night. How Nico had found her with another Bandito studying the vultures. How she was sure he would punish her, but he simply asked her where Tyler was, and to go fetch him.   
And when she had asked him what for, he had just smiled, in that cold, callous way.

"Josh," she whispers, scared and breathless. "I think he knows about today. About the escape. I think— ugh, I don't know how, but I mean, why else would he have asked me? You didn't even know I was friends with Tyler…" She trails off.   
I shrug. "He knows everything."  
She sighs. "I know."

We don't speak for a while. I glance to my left, towards Tyler.

In the dim light, he looks so peaceful. Dark blood and dirt still stain his pale skin.  
I brush the pad of my thumb over his cheek, smile. 

I can feel Jenna watching me.  
"Josh?"  
"Uh huh?"  
"Where were you last night?"

I wonder whether I should let the wind carry the question away.

"We...we were at Dead Man's View."  
"You found it?"  
I nod. "Well, Tyler did."

In my peripheral, I see her wrestling with the question I've been asking myself all night.

"Josh,” she pauses again, and her voice lowers until it’s barely a whisper. “What happened?"

"I—" I let it ring through the air like a knell. "I don't know. Maybe I'll— Maybe he'll tell you at some point." 

She seems to understand.

"We just gotta make sure he gets out, now, with me and you. You know?"

"You care about him a lot, don't you?" Her eyes are like sapphire.

Something sad and long-forgotten. Not in that way. Not anymore. But once, perhaps, it kept me awake. The longing. The thoughts.   
Hands, barely touching. A distant-eyed smile. A kiss. (Or just a dream. Just once, so late that everything was dying. But we were there, alive as anything, close enough to count each other's eyelashes.) 

I don't know if he remembers. I don't know if I want him to.

I shrug. "Yeah, I guess."

I ask her why the Banditos couldn’t just sneak out. I mean, from what I can tell it’s they’re not exactly lanning to scream and shout about it, but still. They’re not going to go all that quietly. I mean, either way, we would be noticed- the Bishops are far too alert to let a couple dozen people go rogue and slip through. But still. Probably a lot less people would be smeared, or dragged back. 

She grimaces. “I thought that too at first.” After rummaging in her pocket, she pulls out a roll of yellow tape, scraping her thumb against the plastic to find the edge. “I thought…” she sighs, winding the tape around her laces, “I thought if we were quiet enough , if we were quick enough, they wouldn’t catch us.” She pulls the tape taut, smooth against the laces. “It doesn’t matter how careful we are, or how few of us go, or how many we tell. They. Always. Know.” She yanks the laces tighter with every word. I can’t tell its anger or sadness that haunts her voice.

There’s a vulture watching us, from the nearest rooftop eyes like obsidian.   
“Josh.” Her eyes meet mine, and I realise we haven’t looked at each other in hours. They sparkle with tears. 

We sat together in the sickly light, Jenna still fiddling with her shoes. I bit at a piece of skin on my thumb. Beads of blood appeared under my nail. Jenna took my hand. “We make it a spectacle because so do they.” She wraps the tape around my thumb. Veins of orange appear over the yellow.

“They make people forget,” She says to my hand.  
“What?”  
“They make people forget. The Banditos. Vialism. Dead Man’s View. Trench.”  
She twists the laces into neat double knots. “Have you ever noticed how most people here don’t even know the Bishops’ names?”  
I’ve never really thought about it. I barely talk to anyone in Dema other than Tyler. Most people just call them “the Bishops”. Part of me wondered if they knew the difference between them.   
“Names have power,” she said. “When you discover their true names, you take part of that power.”

Like faeries, I thought. Dark and mischievous creatures who would steal your name and take control over you.   
There were faerie rings in the woods outside my house in Columbus. We used to leave them offerings- wild berries in the summer, scraps of spangled fabric scrounged from the kitchen in the winter, and walnut shells, filled with tiny amounts of mulled wine. I would tell Abigail stories of them, of great feasts in our honour, where they would dance in their sparkling outfits, warm and happy with wine. She begged me to find them, to let her dance with them. We would search for hours sometimes, until it was late and the sky was black and she would concede that all the faeries had gone to bed. “We’ll find them one day,” I said. “I promise.”   
Teeth stained red with blackberry juice, she smiled. “We’re gonna play so many games, Josh. It’s gonna be so much fun.” 

“Josh?”  
I blink.  
“Josh?”  
“What? Oh- Sorry. I zoned out for a second.”  
“Most of them know,” she said, long legs stretched over the concrete. “They just need waking up.” Her voice is hard and unfaltering. She passes me the tape, and I wrap it over my grey shirt in two long intersecting strips.   
She looks at Tyler, grey-skinned and sleeping. “When Tyler found us, he didn’t know about the Banditos, or he didn’t remember, I’m not quite sure. I think...Well, I want to let other people know we exist, too. As many people as possible.”

A sudden wave of exhaustion crashes over me. So much has happened today, scratching and screaming at my brain. I just want to sleep. One thing stands out to me, though, the thing I was trying my hardest not to think about.  
“Jenna?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Was Tyler...do you think Tyler was really going to leave me behind?”  
“No,” she says, definite. She doesn’t speak for a long time- part of me thinks that was all she had to say.   
But then, “You know Tyler better than me. But from what I can tell, at least right now...I don’t know, he’s trying to figure something out. I don’t think he knows what he’s doing, Josh. I don’t know what he remembers- if he remembers anything, to be honest.”  
“The Bishops have seriously fucked up his memory,” I say under my breath.   
She puts her hand on my shoulder, and I take a deep breath.  
“It’s gonna be alright.” I nod. I hope so. I really fucking hope so.

"Just think, tomorrow we'll all be in Trench."

I smile at the thought, glance back at Tyler.

Finally.

⊬

I wait with Tyler at the back of the Hall, trying to block out the ceremony. The Bishops are reading out the names of the Glorified, but after a while, they all seem to morph into one.

I open my eyes. The Bishops’ mouths seem to be moving, but it’s as though I can’t hear him. He fights against the roar of my thoughts, as they crash and ebb against my head- worrying about Tyler, worrying that the plan will fail, worrying that I’ll never reach Trench. (You know. The usual.)

I look to Tyler. His jaw is stiff, his forehead creased.

I know what he’s thinking right now. It hasn’t left my mind for a second. The neon, so impossible to ignore. The graves. Ben’s skeleton.

The neon always seemed so beautiful through the glass of the Vista. Almost ethereal. 

I remember how it called to me, singing my name.

Josh. Josh. Josh.

Like it was a game.

I brush my hand against his, and he grabs it. All we’ve got left to do is wait.

On the far wall of the Vista, someone’s chalked a message in yellow.

They want to make you forget.

Underneath, there’s another one of those weird symbols. An E, rotated upwards- or perhaps a trident? I turn my head sideways to see if it will make more sense. I want to know who had the nerve to write it in the Necropolis, right under the Bishops’ noses. For a second, Keons looks towards it, and I think he’s seen it, but he glances away again, apparently uninterested. How can they not see it?

In the distance, an owl cries. Tyler nods at me.

We duck out of the doors just as Vetomo has started reading his List. The Banditos are gathered outside, clad in jumbled green and grey and yellow. Someone passes me a torch. Another shares their flame to let me light it. I have a strange, sudden, overwhelming sense of deja vu.

Vultures sit on their ceremonial perches outside the hall like smudges of charcoal in the night. Someone steps forward and salutes them, yellow hood, grey Dema trousers. An odd choice, I think for the Bishop’s servants. “Let us be vultures,” he says in a low voice.  
“Let us be vultures,” they whisper around me. Tyler gazes at the darkening sky, the sun barely a slash of yellow above the walls. He grins. My heart twists. 

Brown eyes, cool air, head racing. It’s gonna be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> yo, thanks for reading! things kind of start happening next chapter, so if you wanna stick around it's gonna start picking up the pace pretty quick. i hope u enjoyed! let me know, comments honestly make my day.
> 
> pear


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